Chipped
by ttyphlosion
Summary: What did he do?" Fuyumi asks when he enters. It's a formality, at this point. "Stuck a tracker in my back." He replies. "What do you have in mind for dinner?"
1. Chapter 1

"Where have you _been,"_ is spit in his face the moment he opens the door. He doesn't react to the venom in the voice, just fixes his gaze on the mats in the entrance.

"Answer me."

"With friends." _Crack. _

"You will not let _friends_ hinder your training," the man says, snarling the word _friends_ only a little more than the other words in the sentence. _I get enough training in class, don't I?_

Neither Todoroki moves for a solid minute. If Father's waiting for a response, he won't be getting one. He seems to be in a merciful mood, however, when he casts his arm in the direction of Shouto's bedroom as a clear cue to leave. It isn't lost on him. He makes his way down the hallway, lifting his head the smallest bit and feeling his sore cheek from the previous slap. He could hear his father following him. _Ha ha, he must be getting protective with the curfew broken. Not like there ever was one. _

Shouto is fully prepared to keep his back to his father as he recedes into his room, but he only makes it halfway through the door before he's knocked flat on his face and pinned to the ground with a searing, sharp elbow wedged between his shoulder blades. He wants to laugh at the fact that it hardly feels like the elbow can fit between the blades. What a size difference. "What did I do?" He manages to croak into the tatami mats.

"You've disobeyed me," wow, what an epiphany, good going, flame fucker, "for the last time."

Shouto wonders if this means that something's actually going to happen this time around. It isn't the first time he's said that, but whatever restriction or punishment he says he'll deal out after the initial you-did-wrong training session, he usually doesn't go through with because he isn't at the house often enough to cement his wishes. Like banning him from talking to his siblings, which was funny, because he hardly did that anyways, or giving him a barebones diet that he totally followed at 5 am on a saturday morning with essential free reign of the kitchen, or illegalizing his little self-field trips.

His shirt is yanked up his back. He has time to think, _Shit, again? _before there's a strong pinch below his left ribcage and the feeling of something being shoved under the skin. He clenches his fist, because _damn, _that's uncomfortable.

His father jabs his elbow into Shouto's spine with a sense of finality, and leaves him sprawled in his doorway with no small amount of stomping. Shouto waits until he's across the house before lifting himself with his arms and pulling himself into his room, his sore back twinging like he imagined an old man's would when it tries to support his weight at the wrong angle. He props himself up against the wall and closes his door, taking a deep breath through his nose. His chin feels like it'll bruise from that fall. _Father's getting careless with these face shots._

He feels his back and his fingers come away with quite a bit of blood. He's probably getting some on the floor. Bummer. For the time being, he decided to ignore the fact that his father literally _chipped_ him like some sort of dog.

He didn't know why he was waiting, but the telltale father-has-a-job noise sequence spurs him into action. He has homework, and still wants to cook with Fuyumi- especially if Father is gone. They usually eat late, anyways. So he gets up, wincing, and changes his shirt before venturing out to the kitchen. Homework can wait.

"What did he do?" Fuyumi asks when he enters. It's a formality, at this point.

"Stuck a tracker in my back." He replies. "What do you have in mind for dinner?"

"Mac n' cheese, if you're up to it," she looks over at him. "You planning on doing something about that? I'll help if you ask."

"Can't find it in me to care just yet. Cupboard?"

"Yeah."

The rest of the night is spent in silence.

"Hey? Todoroki? Are you planning on sparring with me again today?" Midoriya asks him before class.

"No," Shouto shifts in his seat. "Not for the the next few days. You'd be better off asking Uraraka or Ojirou."

Midoriya looked at him with worry. "Oh… is something going on?"

Shouto huffs snidely. "Nothing more than usual." He sees Midoriya looking at the floor out of the corner of his eye and feels a little bad. "I'm sorry, Midoriya. I'll be able to spar again with you by next week."

Midoriya looks back up and searches his eyes with an intense gaze. His skin crawls with nerves. "If you're sure," He says finally, his response nearly getting lost in the morning chatter of the desks farther up front.

_If I was sure about anything, I'd be halfway across the country by now,_ Shouto thinks. _Maybe wearing a wig and going by a different name. But here we are, aren't we?_

"Yes."

On his way home, Shouto witnesses a robbery. Two women decked out in all black and what look like shock absorption vests are causing a ruckus from some convenience store, so he walks on in to 'buy a chocolate bar' but really possibly stop some petty crime. When he opens the door a strong gust of wind comes from behind him and he flinches at the déjà vu from last night. He has time to catch himself on the metal doorframe and lifts his right hand, thinking _shit, this is one of the robber's quirks,_ but it harmlessly blows past him into the store before he can try and freeze literal oxygen. For a split second he attempts to reassess the wind as inanimate, but the robber holding a gun(who uses guns anymore?) is thrown against a display by an unseen force before he can convince himself. What looks like sand whirls out of the air to form a person standing in front of the register.

Two more people bust in the door after him. He steps aside, noting them as heroes. One of them is decked out in yellow and blue skin suit, and the other in a bubbly costume of light green and silver. They're panting, but are grinning under their visor and half-mask respectively. Shouto turns away from the door to find the snack aisle. Might as well get that chocolate bar for real.

He should've left with the other civilians. They didn't get held behind by the police and press for questions.

He arrives back at his house when it's nearing dark. Again, the same question is hurled at him from the door.

"Where have you been?" _Shouldn't you know?_

"I was at a crime scene." Shouto responds.

His father takes in his appearance. The bruise on his chin from yesterday is joined by one on his right cheekbone, the entire left side of his flannel shirt only looks recently dried from being soaked, and he has a gash on the inside of his arm that his father can't see since his sleeve is pulled down.

Don't mess with a sand person and their elemental friends when they're trying to do their job. Even standing far off to the side can get you damaged.

"Did you defeat the villain?" His father asks gruffly. _Those weren't even villains. They were petty robbers._

"I don't have my provisional license," He replies, voice quiet. "That would be illegal."

Endeavor closes his fist around Shouto's sliced arm and yanks him into the house. He's flaring up on his shoulders and yelling something about disappointment after disappointment. Shouto wrestles off his bag and leaves it on the floor in the mud room. No reason to get his homework burnt with the rest of him.

He dresses his wounds in his room with his brother's supplies that he's long since borrowed. There are quite a few, and the ones from the convenience store really aren't helping him either. He takes a look at the clock and figures _Wow, if I don't start working on that essay soon, Aizawa-sensei's going to give me an even worse week._

He goes to bed without dinner or leaving his room. He has a nightmare.

_His mom. She's not sick. _

_She's living with their happier family. _

_The doorway. _

_White hair. Bloody fists. _

_Oh. That's not how those two usually go together._

_Everything hurts again and again. _

_She's cradling his face and apologizing, but her eyes are gone._

_Her. Her_

_Mom?_

_Her_ _fist. _

_**Don't leave me, Shouto.**_

_Blood. Into his back again._

_The voice is so, so wrong._

_**I don't want to lose you.**_

_Mom ?_

He doesn't wake up in sweat, or tears, or with a start. He wakes up like it's a sleepy saturday when he was three and only needed to get up if he wanted to watch cartoons with his siblings or go to the store with Mom. His limbs and brain are tired and he doesn't notice he's even awake until he hears stomping. It's far away, but there's never a way to know how long that'll last.

He sits up and gathers the hem of his blanket in his fists, staring at his white knuckles and folds in the fabric with unwarranted concentration. _Calm down._

After a while, he gets up and changes into his school uniform, listening carefully as he does so. One last day of school, then sweet, sweet home suffering time. At one point, struggling to put his socks on standing up, he acknowledges that he's ignoring things. The nightmare is nothing, the tracker is nothing.

He wonders if he shouldn't be.


	2. Chapter 2

"Today we're going to be doing some good, old-fashioned roleplay!" All Might announces when everyone's gathered in the fake city for Foundational Hero Studies. "Featuring everyone's favorite game: _Pokémon!"_

"PIKACHU!" Kaminari yells in lieu of a cheer. Anything that gets Kaminari riled up in under a second probably isn't great to turn into a Hero Studies class. Shouto looks at Aizawa-sensei's retreating back for a clue, but he's just shaking his head in what looks like equal parts disappointment and exasperation. Helpful.

Shouto leans into Yaoyorozu's space, on his way to ask her what Pokémon exactly is, because her eyes are shining with a barely suppressed sparkle so she must know _something,_ but All Might comes to his aid before he can prompt hers. "Now, I'm aware that not all of you have fluent knowledge of this game, so I'll sum it up for you!"

Movement catches the corner of Shouto's eye, and he sees Midoriya thrumming with excitement.

"The world of Pokémon is very vast, but we'll only be using the battle simulations for this lesson!" Ojirou, standing not far away, wants to know how this specifically will help their hero skills, but says nothing. Unbeknownst to Shouto, he's just shoring up his tolerance to withstand any Mankey joke that may be cracked. (Middle school was fun for him.) "In battles, two trainers direct their teams of Pokémon to defeat each other, most commonly in a one-on-one battle! A trainer can have up to six Pokémon in their team at a time. You all are going to divide into four trainers and their Pokémon, and pit yourselves against each other! Feel free to educate your classmates and assign yourselves to specific Pokémon if you wish!" He holds up a box of lots. "Two Pokémon take turns attacking each other, and switching takes a turn-" he continues explaining as his hand rattles around the spheres inside, "but if one of your so-called Pokémon get too worn out for battle, declare them down for the count!" In a smaller voice, he says, "I'd really rather no one faint. My ears can't take another one of Recovery Girl's lectures.. Ah! Yes! And the trainers are…" He holds up a sphere with a D on it. "Ah. I suppose I need to assign you all letters first."

All the students line up in a long row at his instruction. He reads out the English alphabet, pointing at each of them, then nervously laughs again as he ends on the letter T. "The rest don't matter! Alright, the first trainer is…. Letter R! Step on up!" Hagakure steps forward and pumps her fist. "Letter… F!" Ojirou sighs in relief. "Letter C!" Tsuyu croaks happily. "And finally, letter-! Oh, that's W, knew it would happen, okay… H!" Yaoyorozu looks like she wants to squeal in delight. Her reaction is surprising to Shouto, since she's usually mature in class, but this does sound fun and it's nice to see her totally hyped for something.

"All right! Hagakure, Yaoyorozu, Ojirou, Tsuyu! Pick your Pokémon and fight to your team's best! Remember not to overwork yourselves, and have fun! It is friday, after all! START!"

"I'M PIKACHU!" Kaminari screeches as soon as All Might's done speaking. Sero laughs and pats his shoulder, halfheartedly trying to tame his excitement, but he's already buzzing. Kaminari points across the crowd. "Jirou! You're Exploud!"

"No way in hell!" Jirou sticks her tongue out at him, walking to Yaoyorozu's side and locking their arms. "Don't assume my _species!_ I'm totally Noivern, they're _way_ cooler."

"Does this mean you're on my team, Jirou?" Yaoyorozu asks, cheeks red with excitement for the activity. "I would've made a great Ditto, but being a trainer works well for me, too!"

Shouto, too lost among these names of things he's never heard of, walks around Kouda towards Midoriya in hopes of explanation- he never fails to be knowledgeable- but runs into Asui. "Would you like to join my team, Todoroki?" She says to him.

She looks like she has plenty of knowledge regarding this activity, but still Shouto tugs at his own sleeve and finds himself asking, "Who else is with you?"

"Midoriya, Kouda, and Iida, so far." She says. It only took the first name to convince him.

"Sure."

"No, Uraraka, someone else has to be Breloom! I know I could pull it off and it's a fantastic Pokémon, but I really think Riolu would fit me better. _And_ they have cooler moves," Midoriya says as he approaches Asui with his friend in tow. "Hey, can Uraraka join us?"

"Yes. I'm sorry for not asking you earlier, I saw you talking with Hagakure and assumed you had joined your team instead." Asui says.

Uraraka shrugs. "I was just reminding her which moves only affect status conditions 'cause she hasn't played in a while."

In the near distance, Kaminari insists on being 'earned' by a team by being battled and caught like a "_-true_ Pokémon! _This_ Pikachu ain't no starter!" while Tokoyami crouches on the ground cawing loudly. Shouto's confusion intensifies.

Midoriya, the saint that he is, catches wind of his plight and sidles up next to him. "If you have any questions, feel free to ask me or Tsuyu. She's been playing since she knew who All Might was, and I'm no wimp myself."

"Uh," Shouto flounders, because he doesn't know where to start, but he figures he could narrow it down, "Which one am I?"

Midoriya takes a step back and supports his arm holding his chin in his fingers with his other arm, looking him up and down. "Hm. If you could be two at once, I would say Alolan Vulpix and regular Vulpix, but that's not the case… you wanna pick based on fire or ice?"

"Ice," Shouto replies instantly, then winces. He's trying to work better with his fire, and he still reverts to same old, same cold. Whatever.

"Okay, then how'd you feel about Glaceon?"

"I honestly have no clue."

Midoriya snickers, then pats his shoulder. "Todoroki, my friend, my buddy, my pal, you are going to learn _so much_ today."

"Oh," Kirishima breathes, hopping back and holding out a freshly softened hand. "I'm so sorry, Todoroki! I didn't mean to hit you that hard, are you okay? That looks really nasty, usually bruises don't show up that fa-"

"It's fine. That isn't your fault." Shouto touches his partially covered cheekbone bruise lightly with his fingertips, making sure not too much concealer is gone. He considers forgoing Kirishima's outstretched hand to get up by himself, but the guy looks genuinely worried, and just a moment ago he was body-slamming him with no intention of pulling punches. He'd just worry and stress out over nothing because he cares too much. Shouto takes his hand and Kirishima pulls him up, all too gently. He has to suppress his slight blip of annoyance on his iced-over Feeling Radar™. He isn't made of _glass._

"Where did you get it, then?" Kirishima asks, gesturing to his own cheek. Shouto's twitches. He wants to wipe at his chin and cheekbone, or maybe cover his entire face from the Kirishima's searching eyes, but that would just rub more makeup off.

"Got hit by a dumpster." He replies with full honesty. This elicits a surprised bark of a laugh out of Kirishima, which easily lifts the mood. Shouto doesn't know how he does it. He probably gets the hint, too, because he doesn't push Shouto any further.

"Well, I'm glad you made it out of there alive, bro," he says, giving him an enthusiastic thumbs up. He hops backwards, closer to his benched team and 'trainer'. "Yao-momo! What's next?"

She doesn't hesitate. "Another Bulldoze, Sandslash!" Yaoyorozu calls.

"Use Icy Wind, _kero!"_ Asui ribbits at Shouto.

_I don't understand half of this,_ Shouto thinks as he chucks softball-sized chunks of ice in Kirishima's general direction as fast as he can make them. _At least no one's complained about my improvisation._ His hardened classmate charges right at him, and it's on instinct that he launches himself to the side with a boost from a quick buildup of ice under his boot. He almost falters, looking back at Asui to see if that move was allowed, because there was _no_ way evasion fit into the suggested criteria of Icy Wind, but she's grinning at him proudly. Kirishima narrowly avoids tripping on the small chunk of ice coming from the floor and ends up slipping on it instead. He rolls to soften the fall.

"Glaceon avoided the attack!" Asui cheers.

"Wait, I can do that?"

"Yes," Asui replies, "but not too often."

Shouto quickly assures the well-being of Kirishima(who's still on his ass, laughing) before proceeding with the exercise. Distractingly, the rest of Yaoyorozu's team stand behind her hold a thumb war tournament. Bakugou looks like he's winning, but looks to be having a bit of trouble following the rule of "don't let go" with his slippery glycerin-coated hands.

Shouto doesn't care. He's focusing on the match.


	3. Chapter 3

Shouto supposed his father had, in fact, chipped him at a convenient time, and defininitely not on Shouto's end. After the weekend came the internships. It's not like Shouto was planning to run off while doing something for school, even if it did involve _Enji,_ but he forgot the other thing that was part of his new weekend routine.

His father doesn't know about his visits to his mother.

Or that he plans on regularly doing visiting her, at least.

He's only been once, after the sports festival, and even though the visit was awkward and mostly consisted of apologies and how-are-you-doings and maybe a few tears, he wants to go more. He wants to learn things about his mother that most kids should know by fifteen, like her favourite ice cream flavor or what she likes to do when she's bored, which must be often with how she's confined to the hospital. He'd already even purchased a popular teen fantasy novel earlier in the week to give to her to read.

But here he is, clutching at his messenger bag where the novel resides and forcing himself to stay on the train when it stops near the mental hospital. He should have remembered when he left the house, or before he got on the train, so this could be avoided altogether, but it's too late now.

All that intentional forgetting just bit him in the ass.

He's got to do something now that he's here. He needs a cover story. Maybe he could just sit on a park bench and brainstorm one without actually doing anything.

At least sitting on a park bench isn't the worst thing he could be doing on a Sunday.

The first park he finds is packed. There are families and couples milling about, buying food from stands, while hordes of little kids swarm about the jungle gym and haphazardly show off their quirks. The whole atmosphere is new and unfamiliar to him but surprisingly pleasant. He crosses an open grassy area to get to the first empty bench he sees and has to dodge out of the destructive path of a stray frisbee on the way.

Shouto sits and observes the crowd and small shops lining the roads nearby while trying to think. He picks at a scab on the back of his hand. Bounces his leg. After almost three minutes of his thoughts helplessly twirling in circles and stressing him out, he closes his eyes and tries some breathing exercises. He tilts his head back and focuses on the sun on his face. He brushes his fingers against the frayed edges of wood of the seat and the roughness of the bench's rusty armrests and focuses on the feeling of that too in hopes of centering himself.

When he's tired of that, while having a noticeably calmer mindset, he still doubts his ability to just… make up a cover story. So instead of thinking of a fake one, he decides to create a real one.

Walking down the small shop-filled streets branched off the bustling park, Shouto's mind wanders. At home, he busies himself with homework and chores and Fuyumi's company and… _training._ At school there's the teachers to listen to, notes to take, exercises to improve his hero skills with, and tentative friends to talk to. Being outside the house in an area he's a stranger to on a weekend is a happy medium for that. He supposes his three low-stakes post-sports festival sparring sessions with Midoriya were, too. He enjoyed them.

If he had to take a guess at what his classmates are doing… Kaminari's probably reading some English classics or playing Mario Kart, maybe Pokemon after Friday. Iida's probably studying, maybe visiting his brother in the hospital. Yaoyorozu's studying like Iida, or reading like Kaminari, or maybe going shopping or attending a high class party or doing one of those other things her parents tend to drag her along to. Aoyama's probably scrolling social media or watching makeup tutorials or getting his grace naps. His beauty rest, as Shouto has come to learn, is saved for exclusively nighttime. Satou's probably baking for his quirk, hanging out with his dog, or volunteering somewhere. He seems like the kind of person to do that. Jirou's definitely listening to music no matter what she's up to. Mineta - hm. Mineta is probably getting sniped, but that might just be Shouto's wishful thinking. He's stuck in some strange town with nothing to do besides pretend he came there for a reason and fantasize about rotten fruit he knows getting brutally murdered.

He turns his attention to the storefronts he passes as he walks down the sidewalk. Maybe he should see a movie. People went out on the weekend to do that, right? He doesn't know if it's weird to go to one by himself, or if there's even a theatre in the area, but it's worth a try. Maybe he should go to a bookstore, find a book for himself? He doesn't have enough money to buy one, just the amount for the train back and a little spare change, but he could always just sit and read one. He could read his mom's book, so they can talk about it as their shared knowledge instead of past mistakes and the view out her only window. That would be nice.

Liking both the movie theatre and bookstore ideas, he decides to enter whichever one he spots first. He remembers seeing a little bookstore near the park, but that was then and this is now and he doesn't want to go back in the direction he came from just yet. Predictably, he ends up coming across a bookstore before a theatre anyways. He sighs and enters, still somewhat curious about what films could have been showing. It hits him twenty minutes later in the middle of rifling through a manga he's seen Fuyumi reading around the house that he wouldn't have had the money to see a movie, anyways. Well, legally. He's vaguely glad that he doesn't have his thought process publicly available for strangers to read. This manga's pretty cool, though. Setting it back on its pile, he pull out his phone from his pocket and shoots a text to Fuyumi asking if she owns any copies it, and after a moment's hesitation follows another, asking to borrow them if she does.

Shouto sets off towards the left wall of the small store, where he had seen a cluster of chairs through the front windows. The shelves are tall and the ceiling low, so he can't see any other customers, but he sure can hear them. Near the back wall he can hear some old guy slowly working out how to get a gift card with the lone employee, and there's a kid gushing about a movie they saw with their mom to someone else. They're exceptionally loud. From the snippets he overhears he can gather that it was something about aliens and wrinkly skin diseases.

He crinkles his nose a little and sits down to read the book from his mom. From the chair, he can see down three different rows and lets himself relax from the maximized range of visibility. A deep, resonating voice says something that the kid responds to excitedly, and though the voice is calm, it sends unpleasant shivers down Shouto's spine. He's only halfway down the first page of the book, but snaps it shut and stands up anyways. What really makes him spook is the sight of the guy turning into one of the rows in his line of sight, and he looks _way_ too familiar.

He knows it's stupid, it's obviously not him. Just from a glimpse he can see he doesn't have the same face or muscles, but he's got the spiky black hair and the height and the voice and even though it's soft it's just _too much._ This was supposed to be the day where he got away, saw his mom, and he couldn't do that, and now he can't even do this. It feels like an invasion. Shouto finds himself speedwalking down the aisle on the other side of a shelf, free fist clenched and sweaty.

But of course, he isn't home free. The kid walking with the guy happens to look up through the shelf as he passes, and it just so happens the family's to his left. He watches as her eyes widen at the sight of his scar, and she screams. Suddenly, there's a large crash and Shouto's vision is a blur of color.

Only after a moment of sitting on his ass with the fallen bookshelf forming bruises on his thighs does he realize _why._ Wrinkly disease aliens. She thought he was an alien.

He wants to laugh.

The dad is apologizing profusely and explaining his daughter's quirk, Blown Out of Proportion, while he tries to pry the shelf off him. He slips a little on a fallen book. He's actually getting pretty stressed out, sounding near tears, and Shouto helps him with the shelf. He wasn't wrong before when he thought he didn't have the same muscles as Endeavor. The shelf is heavy metal, but it's empty, since all the books slipped out of it. Shouto holds it up to pull himself out with little difficulty. The dad's still blubbering, and when he looks up, he's startled to see that his face is dripping like wax. He frowns, hesitantly concerned, as he returns the shelf to its upright position.

"I- I'm so sorry, both my daughter and I's quirks are emotion-based," he rambles, "she's just recently seen a movie where- ah- people turned into wrinkly red zombies, and I'm sorry, that was really rude of her to point out yo-your scar like that we're so sorry to disturb you like this are you okay?" He half-reaches for him, and Shouto takes an obvious step back, briefly looking to his feet. In his peripheral, he notices the book in is hand is covered in a thin layer of frost.

"Yes, I'm fine. Are _you _okay? Your face is getting everywhere."

The man croaks out a laugh through his melty mouth. "Th-that happens sometimes." He turns abruptly at the arrival of the lone employee, who didn't look pleased at the scattered books on the floor, and Shouto takes another step. He can't even see the worker over the melty guy's shoulder, but he can hear him speaking to the father and trying to calm him down as his face starts dripping down his shirt and he resolves to pay for the damages.

Shouto's part here is done, his heart rate's rising every second he spends breathing the same air as this guy, and no one will mind too much if he walks away right now, so that's what he does. The little girl is peeking out from another shelf, normal size again, watching him distrustfully. Shouto feels like he should do something, like smile at her or give her a thumbs up or start crying like he really wants to, but all he can manage is a nod before he calmly flees from the store.

Back in the shop, the worker asks the wax-man if anyone was injured in the small incident, and he turned, remembering the kid that was there, like, a minute and a half ago. He isn't anymore. The wax man starts crying because he didn't apologize enough. He only makes the connection of _who_ that kid was when the day's nearly over.

Fun - kankyou poison - doku child - ko

Kankyou Dokuko, like the proper villain he aspired to be, made sure to read up on pro heroes and their greatest weaknesses. The most easily accessible one of those weaknesses? Family. Take away a person's family and by proxy you take away their will to live- that is, if all heroes with kids could be considered people, and weren't consumed by the power, money, and fame that they possessed. Not that he was already on the taking-down-heroes level; he was still only beginning to commit petty crimes for personal gain, at this point, but he planned to change that soon! He had big dreams and big targets in mind, and all that was standing between him and achieving and slaughtering them(respectively) was experience and courage. He already had his dashing-good villain looks- a full head of black hair that stood up like a mountain range, the height, the muscles… but for now, he used his knowledge for a lesser evil: paying his rent.

Todoroki Enji must give his kids a hefty allowance.

When the kid, Todoroki Shouto, comes out of the bookstore, it's just Dokuko's luck that he appears to be deep in thought. But darn, that kid really books it when he's lost in thought. Could he somehow sense Dokuko was there? Probably not, because he turned left down the sidewalk, where Dokuko was peering behind the entrance to an alleyway. The Todoroki is clutching his messenger bag's strap with his eyes glued to the ground. He wonders if he should question that. Whatevs.

Dokuko ducks back into the shadows as Todoroki advances, and as soon as he passes the entrance he lurches back out and presses one of his smaller knives into his neck. He holds him from behind so he doesn't try anything funny. He's halfway through sawing off the front strap of his bag with his third hand when he registers that the kid's not moving- well, okay, he's shaking, but otherwise he's silent and still as a rock. Dokuko can't see his face. All of the sudden, he's wary. He should be, of course, because civilians are speedwalking by and others are taking videos on their phones, but this kid was a _hero student._ Sure, he expected to get the bag and whatever mounds of money stuffed inside, but he didn't expect the kid _freezing up_ on him. He was probably thinking up a master plan to straight up murder him. Or maybe he didn't keep his money in his bag.

"Kid, you don't happen to have a wallet on your person, do ya?" Dokuko asks, low but thoroughly nervous, now. This kid had probably figured out how to freeze all the blood in his veins solid by his silence alone, and he barely made it up to Dokuko's pecs! Dear lord, was this cash jackpot really worth it? He doesn't answer his question, and it doesn't feel like he's going to.

Dokuko's knife slices clear through the last taut strands of the strap keeping the bag over the Todoroki kid's shoulder, so he caught it with his fourth and final hand. He took a small step back to get some distance between them, keeping the knife on his neck and- oh, there he goes.

Dokuko only registers _immense_ pain in his side, then air, then his head and oh, where'd the color go? There it is again, and when did he get back in this alleyway? He tries to shake off his daze and looks up to see the kid standing there in the afternoon light, silhouetted with a glow that made him look like some sort of avenging angel. Comparatively, Dokuko's laying on a mound of trash bags. And his face-mask was knocked out of whack, so now it's digging into the side of his nose uncomfortably.

It's hard to see him with the light, but one of his hands is cupping the side of his neck where Dokuko hopes he got him with his blade, and- huh. He's crying. He takes a step into the alley, and he wonders if he broke him. He vagilantly tries to get up, clutching a jarred hand to his chest, but stops when the hand brushes a patch of burning-cold ice built up on his jacket like a deadly snowflake. He instead opts for scooting a little closer to the wall to brace himself on, keeping his eyes on the kid and reaching for another knife, his last one. (He isn't what you would call well equipped.)

He's stopped by the Todoroki's voice. It's quiet and it's wavering- he's definitely crying- but it carries through the alleyway crystal-clear.

"_Don't do that."_

A shiver goes up Dokuko's spine at his conviction. It pierces his skull and feels like it forcefully switches the lens on his world perception. There's a quiet hiss, and he blinks back up at the entrance, not remembering when he brought his gaze to the ground, to find that he was making his leave, teeth gritted and limping a little. He disappears and Dokuko blinks again.

After another minute of contemplation and pain management, Dokuko stands up with the wall's help. He feels a little light-headed, but… he has things to do. Everyone hates making decisions, and sure, his pride is wounded when the answer's shoved right in front of it, but- it seemed right. Whatever made a fifteen-year-old kid stare at an armed mugger like… like that, was something powerful.

Dokuko is shaken out of his stupor by the civilians still clustered outside the alley, having smartly not entered while he could've still been in there. A couple of them, after a moment of hesitation and exchanged looks, come after him with their convenient quirks, which is illegal, by the way. They don't look like they'd have licenses. His arms jerk at his first instinct, to meet them head-on and overpower them with sheer force, and he immediately sickens. Instead, he shoves between a couple middle aged folks and books his way down the street.

No police or heroes are there to chase after him, so he escapes unscathed. He's glad he wore his exercise shorts for the day, so many blocks later when he tears his mask off along with his grey hoodie and dumps them in a dumpster and slows his sprint to a light jog, it doesn't look like he's a very guilty criminal on the run anymore. Just a tired college student on a run. Maybe a pair of earbuds would help the facade. When he's slowed enough to catch his breath, he reopens his senses to take in his surroundings. The place should be somewhere around that McDonalds… he remembers the green graffiti.

Not three minutes later, Dokuko quietly enters the quaint flower shop, covered in a light sheen of sweat. His purposeful breaths are out-noised by the fanfare door-bell, but after that, the only sound is a short wrinkled woman's greeting from behind a rack of dangling bright purple blossoms.

"Hello! What're you looking for this fine afternoon?" She grins, squinting up at him a little.

"Uh," Dokuko says, "I was wondering if you were open for hire?"

Todoroki is so, _so_ tired. The rest of his walk to the train station is spent holding his bag with a vice grip because he can no longer sling it over his shoulder. He's had this bag since he was twelve. He won't give up on it so easily. He's sure Fuyumi would know where some duct tape is, and he can patch it up. Again his eyes are trained on the ground so he doesn't even react when he's nearly run over by two bikers. He doesn't bother looking up to see who they were. People must also ask him what's wrong with his neck and whether he's okay but he's not paying attention… thats a nice pavement crack…. Am I right.

Tokoyami and Shinsou are on their weekend bike ride when they see Todoroki walking down the sidewalk. Neither of them particularly know him, but Tokoyami was in the same class as him and has always assumed there to be a small amount of emo-kid solidarity between them. Or maybe he was just quiet. He was one of the most powerful kids in class and could only be seen talking willingly when he was with Midoriya, a sentiment which nobody could blame him for. Also, it was always exciting to see someone from school outside it, like when Shinsou and him first found out they lived near each other.

It was a little weird to find out Tokoyami rode the same train home as the guy who made Ojirou, a pretty sweet guy, in his opinion, step out of the sports festival like he did, but after a short explanation and a quick put-together of his previously known pieces, all was understood and no hard feelings stuck. After that, they had the entire train ride and walks to their respective houses to bond through. It's been, like, two weeks since then and they've learned quite a bit about each other- Tokoyami, unsurprisingly, was more emo than Shinsou but got more sleep than him; Shinsou loved teasing Tokoyami about his unrequited love for cats. They both liked biking, though, so they decided to do that together. Neither(stupidly) wear helmets, but Shinsou nevers forgets his wrist guards no matter the situation. Tokoyami's tried to ask before but he never got a linear answer. "Some things just can't be explained," he remembers hearing, once.

Shinsou notices him first. "Hey, isn't that the guy that blew up the ring with Midoriya in the sports festival?" He says. Tokoyami looks over at him, then up to follow his gaze.

"Yes."

"Cool." Shinsou swerves around a pavement-tree to get his route closer to the guy, and pedals a little harder. He's facing him and Tokoyami, but he looks anywhere but in reality, his head bowed. He doesn't react as Shinsou On Wheels advances. "Greetings, Ice Queen," Shinsou says loudly as he rolls on by. The candy cane's steps don't even falter, though he'd pedaled maybe half a foot away from his arm, well within whatever tunnel vision he himself had experienced an expected him to have developed. He saw his hair misplace, so he wasn't some sort of hallucination/projection. Probably?

Tokoyami, already behind Shinsou, slowed down and hunched over his bars as he glided forward to get a good look at Todoroki's face to check if he was alive. He nearly hit Todoroki and fell off his bike when he realized he was biting his lip and his face was scrunched _like he was trying not to cry._ Oh. And as his bewildered gaze lingered in hindsight as he continued after Shinsou, he also noticed there was blood on the side of his neck and he was holding onto his bag with severed straps.

Shinsou, having slowed for him, startles him when he speaks up. "What's up with him?"

"I wouldn't know," Tokoyami mused, still thoroughly confused but now also trying to flatten his feathers from the spook, "but my best guess is that he got dumped by his vampire girlfriend?"

Shinsou seems to take his theory at face value and scoffs, glancing back himself. "Didn't think vampires would be that stupid. The dude's gorgeous."

Tokoyami nearly falls off his bike again, wheezing in laughter.


End file.
